HOW TO PARTICIPATE

CFP - Call for Participation

If you wish to submit your talk or present your existing project or paper, fill out this form by 22 Sep. If accepted, you’ll be notified by 30 Sep.

Possible topics for talks include and are not limited to:

IoT environment monitoring Citywide projects

IoT climate monitoring devices

IoT climate apps

Citizen Open Data Networks

Information Technology

Network Security & Cryptography

Hardware hacking

IoT community networks

DNS, network identifiers and IoT

Embedded device / IoT security and innovative attacks and defences

Mesh Networks

Mobile security

Personal Data & Privacy

Robotics

Wearables

IoT Fashion

IoT Furniture

Disrupting policy and society in a constructive way

PYOI - Pitch Your Own Idea

If you have something interesting to develop, let us know ahead of time or come and pitch to the group at the event. Rather than running a single long hackathon, come along and:

Pitch an idea or project

Work on it

Get it done in a weekend 🙂

This year, DESCON focuses on working together to save the planet.

Some of the topics we will be developing:

Climate monitoring devices

Climate monitoring software aps

Join Us

Teslaton

In the Teslaton, we will explore how we can use energy more efficiently and tap into alternative energy sources from nature. This will ensure that energy usage will have a less detrimental impact on the environment, which will have a positive impact on many areas, including agriculture, health and other life on the planet. Fittingly, this year’s DESCON has teamed up with the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, drawing inspiration from Nikola Tesla who dedicated his life to energy and innovation.

You are welcome to bring your own components for the hackathon. Please note that any complete or previous projects will not be considered.

Build your own solar power device

The goal is to make a completely new product that is ready to assemble from scratch. Show how to put it together or how to make a future citizen’s kit.

Join Us

Datathon

We are asking participants and teams to be creative and make use of any open data sets from online open data portals to develop applications showing daily updates of any available open data in your neighbourhood that is scrape-able, or free to download and use.

Projects should demonstrate how open environmental data and citizen’s collaborative measurement networks can help the environment. Broad use of this data enables high-quality information in energy and other sectors, and can, in some cases, spot environmental disasters.

We will provide:

A lovely venue

WiFi

Various sensors measuring temperature, gases, pollutants

Big Desks

Lunch, snacks and refreshments

Internet access

Soldering irons, alloy

3D Printer

Nano-arduinos

ESP-8266 – low-cost Wifi microchip

Intel RealSense depth and tracking camera

Application cloud account

You can bring anything else you think you will need!

Register now!

SCHEDULE

Day 1

Sat, Oct 5th

09:30 - 10:30

Registration and Coffee

10:30 - 10:45

Welcome

Capture The Flag announced & "IoT Security Vulnerabilities" talk

Talk details:
Security questions have dogged the Internet of Things (IoT) since before the name was invented. This talk will cover the most common vulnerabilities in IoT devices with hints on how to use some of these vulnerabilities to solve challenges at DESCON CTF (Capture the flag) competition. The final idea of this talk is to inspire people to look for these vulnerabilities in Klimamerko after "Build Your Own Carbon and PM Footprint Mobile Station" workshop on Sunday.

Talk

11:30 - 11:55

Pitch Your Idea & Find Your Team

12:00 - 23:00

Teslaton

In the Teslaton, DESCON explores how we can use energy more efficiently and tap into energy sources from nature to ensure that energy usage will have a less detrimental impact on the environment. This will have a positive effect in many areas, including agriculture, health, and other life on the planet. Fittingly, this year’s DESCON has teamed up with the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, taking inspiration from Nikola Tesla’s life and work, which was dedicated to energy and innovation.

You are welcome to bring your own components for the teslaton. Please note that any complete or previous projects will not be considered.

Build your own solar power device
The goal is to make a completely new product that is ready to assemble from scratch. Show how to put it together or how to make a future citizen’s kit. We will provide:

2x Huge 6V 6W Solar panel (6.0 Watt)

2x 3.8 / 1.3mm or 3.5 / 1.1mm to 5.5 / 2.1mm DC Jack Adapter Cable

2x 3.5mm / 1.1mm to 5.5mm / 2.1mm DC Jack Adapter

2x USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger (v2)

3x Arduino Pro Mini 328 - 3.3V/8 MHz

15x Photocell (CdS photoresistor)

2x Mini Pan-Tilt Kit - Assembled with Micro Servos

Hackathon

12:00 - 23:00

Datathon

In the Datathon, DESCON looks at how open environmental data and citizen’s collaborative measurement networks can help the environment. Broad use of this data enables high-quality information in energy and other sectors, and can, in some cases, spot environmental disasters. Last year at DESCON, we developed an air quality measurement device, “KLIMAMERKO”, which is now a technology solution for a new netizen project “Air to the People” or “Vazduh Gradjanima” measuring particulate matter, i.e dust particles in the air. This project is supported by ISOC.RS, HKLBGD, Belgrade Open School, SEPA and UNDP.

Hackathon

12:00 - 14:00

The Pivot Moment in Ethical Decision-Making

This workshop is about identifying key ethical decision-making moments in technology design and developing ethical reflection in general. It will present ways of thinking about ethics and technology design beyond consequentialist and utilitarian approaches and explore themes such as sustainability, social good, transparency and usability.
In this first part of the two-workshop series, the focus will be on the 'legibility' and 'explainability' of technology design.

Workshop

12:00 - 16:00

Make Your Own Hologram

In this workshop, we will go over what a hologram is and how it is made, and we will make our very own holograms using a Single Beam Reflection technique. This is the simplest and most straightforward way to make a real hologram.

Full kits will be provided!

If you’d like to bring objects of your own to experiment with, please keep in mind that we will be using a red laser beam so only red, white or reflective objects will show up best. Green or blue will absorb the red light, yielding a poor hologram. Other good objects include die-cast metal, pewter, ceramic, jewellery, coins, keys, metal etc.

We’ll also spend some time experimenting with different ideas like making holograms of holograms or anything else that the group might think is interesting.

This is going to be a fun, hands-on experience and you’ll walk away with a better understanding of holograms and some interesting holographic plates to keep!

Spaces are limited.

Workshop

14:00 - 15:00

Light Lunch

15:00 - 16:00

Cryptoparty

Personal is Global: Waste, climate change and what we can do about it.

In this talk, I will explore personal waste as a growing global environmental issue. I will base the talk on my own experience of going low-waste/zero-waste over the past 3 years, and why I embarked on this journey. From oceans full of plastic to developing countries turning into the 'waste lands' of the rich nations, from landfills full of toxic e-waste to waste produced by food and fashion industry, I will discuss why personal waste is a global problem, and why we need to act now.

Independent Monitoring of Air Pollution in the Balkans - NGOs Role

Air quality data is unreliable in most countries in the region and we suspect the monitoring systems are sometimes turned off or placed in irrelevant locations. With our own particulate matter (PM) measuring device, we aim to provide independent data on air quality in a few selected sites in the Balkans, particularly in lignite hotspots.

Talk

17:00 - 17:20

Drive Your Sharing Economy with Open IoT Grounds

A ground allows people with a common interest to build and share their IoT devices, assets and data either internally within a team, externally to a selected audience, or publicly with everyone. We will show you how to build for-profit and non-profit services on top of data, tools and infrastructure provided by AllThingsTalk.

Day 2

Coffee

Teslaton (continues)

In the Teslaton, DESCON explores how we can use energy more efficiently and tap into energy sources from nature to ensure that energy usage will have a less detrimental impact on the environment. This will have a positive effect in many areas, including agriculture, health, and other life on the planet. Fittingly, this year’s DESCON has teamed up with the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, taking inspiration from Nikola Tesla’s life and work, which was dedicated to energy and innovation.

You are welcome to bring your own components for the teslaton. Please note that any complete or previous projects will not be considered.

Build your own solar power device
The goal is to make a completely new product that is ready to assemble from scratch. Show how to put it together or how to make a future citizen’s kit. We will provide:

2x Huge 6V 6W Solar panel (6.0 Watt)

2x 3.8 / 1.3mm or 3.5 / 1.1mm to 5.5 / 2.1mm DC Jack Adapter Cable

2x 3.5mm / 1.1mm to 5.5mm / 2.1mm DC Jack Adapter

2x USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger (v2)

3x Arduino Pro Mini 328 - 3.3V/8 MHz

15x Photocell (CdS photoresistor)

2x Mini Pan-Tilt Kit - Assembled with Micro Servos

Hackathon

10:30 - 18:00

Datathon (continues)

In the Datathon, DESCON looks at how open environmental data and citizen’s collaborative measurement networks can help the environment. Broad use of this data enables high-quality information in energy and other sectors, and can, in some cases, spot environmental disasters. Last year at DESCON, we developed an air quality measurement device, “KLIMAMERKO”, which is now a technology solution for a new netizen project “Air to the People” or “Vazduh Gradjanima” measuring particulate matter, i.e dust particles in the air. This project is supported by ISOC.RS, HKLBGD, Belgrade Open School, SEPA and UNDP.

Hackathon

11:00 - 14:00

Build Your Own PM Footprint Air Quality Mobile Station – Session 1

This is a continued initiative of DESCON 3.0 + 4.0 and Haklab Belgrade. We have developed a small portable measurement device supported with an electricity plug that all citizens could build at this workshop, install in their environment and connect to an open data network. A 3-hour tutorial on Sunday will train 20 participants as part of the Belgrade Open School, ISOC Serbia and the United Nations Development Programme pilot project “vazduh gradjanima” to build their own DESCON “klimamerko”.

Keynote

Negotiating Ethics

In this workshop, which will build on Saturday's workshop [though all are welcome even if they have not attended the first workshop], we will look at agency and negotiation as part of the ethical design process. We will be pivoting the different job roles, technical skills, political, economic and social contexts to explore how individual and group-level ethical reflection can be reflected in technological design.

Workshop

14:00 - 15:00

Light Lunch

15:00 - 16:30

Surveillance Community

Andrej and Filip from SHARE Foundation will look at what the community can do about the spread of intrusive video surveillance across cities. Video surveillance infrastructure, which poses serious risks to privacy due to intrusive technologies such as automated facial recognition, has been expanding considerably lately, and so, social action to protect citizens' privacy needs to be considered. This workshop will provide an opportunity to share ideas and practical suggestions on how citizens can counter the spread of video surveillance in their communities using different methods.

Workshop

15:00 - 18:00

Build Your Own PM Footprint Air Quality Mobile Station – Session 2

This is a continued initiative of DESCON 3.0 + 4.0 and Haklab Belgrade. We have developed a small portable measurement device supported with an electricity plug that all citizens could build at this workshop, install in their environment and connect to an open data network. A 3-hour tutorial on Sunday will train 20 participants as part of the Belgrade Open School, ISOC Serbia and the United Nations Development Programme pilot project “vazduh gradjanima” to build their own DESCON “klimamerko”.